1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to vehicle lamp structures using an elastic sealing material held between a sealing leg and a contacted portion on a peripheral wall in order that the joint between peripheral wall and the contacted portion of the peripheral wall is properly sealed. The vehicle lamp can have an elastic sealing material is held at the joint between the sealing leg of a front lens and the sealing groove of a lamp body. The present invention also includes a vehicle lamp wherein an elastic sealing material is held at the joint between a sealing leg surrounding a bulb replacing opening, in the back of a lamp body, and a vehicle body panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vehicle lamp of the sort mentioned above is structured so that, as shown in FIG. 11, the sealing leg 4 of a front lens 3 is mated with a sealing groove 2 formed along the front opening of a lamp body 1 via a elastic sealing material 5, to closely seal the joint between the sealing leg 4 and the sealing groove 2. The sealing material 5 is an elastic material that is prepared by applying to the sealing groove 2 a liquid thermosetting foamable sealing material and heat-drying the material, in order to make the material foam, expand and solidify. Furthermore, the front lens 3 is fixed to the lamp body 1 by mating the sealing leg 4 with the sealing groove 2, so as to mate the sealing leg 4 with the sealing groove 2 by irregular lance-mating (not shown). At this time, the sealing leg 4 and the sealing material 5 are held in such a state that both of them have been pressure-welded together.
On the other hand, a sealing leg 6 is formed on the back wall of the lamp body 1 in such a manner as to surround a bulb fitting hole 1a and a sealing material 8 is held between the sealing leg 6 and a vehicle body panel 7 in order to prevent water and dust from reaching the periphery of the bulb fitting hole 1 a through the gap between the vehicle body panel 7 and the lamp body 1. Reference numeral 9 denotes a light source (bulb) fitted into the bulb fitting hole 1a.
As shown in FIG. 12, the sealing material 8 is molded integrally with the sealing leg 6 by applying the liquid thermosetting foamable sealing material to the groove b of a receiving jig a and making the sealing material foam, swell and harden in such a state that the sealing leg 6 has been fitted into the groove b, so that the sealing material 8 together with the sealing leg 6 can be separated from the receiving jig a. The lamp is fixed to the vehicle body by clamping a bracket on the lamp side and the vehicle body with, for example, bolts and nuts and at this time the bulb fitting hole 1a is so positioned as to align with the bulb replacing opening 7a of the vehicle body panel 7 and hold the sealing leg 6 on the vehicle body panel 7 via the sealing material 8. Nevertheless, the prior art sealing materials 5, 8 are disadvantageous because it takes much time until the materials are dried and solidified (i.e., until their shapes are stabilized) and this results in lowering the lamp productivity to that extent. Since the sealing materials 5, 8 are in a liquid state, the materials are not usable as sealing materials whose shapes varies three-dimensionally.
As the sealing material 8 used for closely sealing the back side of the lamp body 1 is formed through the steps of applying the liquid sealing material to the groove b of the receiving jig a, holding the lamp body 1 while the sealing leg 6 is kept in engagement with the groove b and then removing the receiving jig a, the number of working steps for integrating the sealing material 8 with the sealing leg 6 becomes large and the problem is that it is troublesome work to follow the steps.